The government yesterday cleared the decks for the coming general election with a Queen's speech programme ruthlessly designed to deprive Labour's opponents of campaign weapons.

With no fewer than eight bills out of 32 pertaining to domestic and global security - from street hooliganism to the threat from al-Qaida - Tony Blair's ministers struggled to persuade voters that they attach equal importance to their plans for schools and transport, the NHS and consumer welfare.

Privately, ministers know that many of yesterday's bills will fall if, as expected, Mr Blair calls a May 5 election. David Blunkett expects to get only ID cards and the British FBI - both highly symbolic - through parliament by then.

Amid taunts that they are "all talk and no action" from the Tories and "focusing on fear" from the Liberal Democrats, Labour strategists tried to reassert their more optimistic and progressive credentials last night.

They used a glossy upbeat party political broadcast called Proud of Britain - which featured athletes, kids, TV stars and entrepreneurs, but no politicians - to insist that the country is more successful than it has been for years.

The Blair team is acutely aware that optimism and a sense of direction impress voters, and has attempted to inject those sentiments into the rest of the Queen's speech.

A further shakeup of the privatised rail network is promised, along with curbs on loan sharking and other means to protect consumers sitting on £60bn worth of personal debt.

Plans to target mismanagement that leads to death, so-called corporate killing, are likely to be watered down. Charity law reform will require private schools to prove their charitable value to the wider community, while Ofsted, the schools watchdog, will get sharper teeth.

The package of proposals provoked sharp exchanges at Westminster, where the prime minister accused Michael Howard of peddling "fantasy policies" and was accused in turn of endless failed promises and higher taxes by the Tory leader.

Peter Hain, leader of the Commons, told reporters that Labour's security package was intended to force the Lib Dems into further U-turns to support tougher measures against petty crime, and to force the Tories rightwards. "We are crowding out any space for them on the security agenda. That will make for an interesting political year," he said.

The background to yesterday's exchanges was heightened by unconfirmed media reports that terrorist threats thwarted by the security services since September 11 2001 included a plan to destroy the Canary Wharf towers, London's financial nerve centre, from the air.

Ministers denied manipulative leaking and Charles Kennedy told MPs that he believes them - but warned that many voters do not. Later he told Radio 4's PM: "A lot of people instinctively when they hear the government say something about security, the memories of 45 minutes, weapons of mass destruction and all the rest come to mind, they say 'they are at it again'."

Labour officials and ministers including Mr Hain and Alan Milburn, the election supremo, argue that "security and opportunity" go hand in hand. It is "patronising" to ignore people's fears of either yobs or terrorists, as elections in Australia, the US and elsewhere had shown, they said.

"Traditionally, the right is more comfortable with the security theme, the left with opportunity themes. Because the climate has changed you have to win them both," Mr Milburn said.